New UK climate change plan may need updating if Dr Hansen is correct that sea levels will rise meters, not inches, much worse than previously thought

Newly released “UK climate change Risk Assessment 2017” has generated little attention but is vital to the country’s future. Looking at how warmer winters, hotter summers, changing rainfall, and rising sea levels the upcoming "National Adaptation Programme" will show how to deal with the changes.

UK Assessment plans

Lord Gardiner, Defra (Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs) Minister, said, “Our changing climate is one of the most serious environmental challenges that we face as a nation and that is why we are taking action, from improving flood defences across the country to securing our critical food and water supplies."

In July 2013 the First Assessment plan recommended:

>Spending £2.5 billion over six years to protect 300,000-plus homes from Flooding

>Updates to the "Heatwave Plan for England"

>Improving drainage systems

>Adding 50 new marine conservation areas

>Increasing food supply security

>Researching risks from new plant pests and diseases

Record heat

Many countries’ plans to cope with climate change may need updating because the situation appears to be much worse than expected with global temperature changes already near the 2050 Paris Agreement goals.

Last year, 2016, was the warmest year on record. The third successive year which set a new higher record, 1.78 °F above the mean 20th century temperature.

More bad news

Jim Hansen, formerly NASA’s chief climate scientist who was gagged when he tried to publish and speak about his findings years ago, predicts sea level changes drastically higher than current mainstream predictions,

Instead of a one foot rise as many reports have found. Dr Hansen’s study, published in “Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics,” shows that the ocean levels will probably increase by meters instead of centimetres - as much as 6 ft. by 2050-2100 from just the expected 2-degree centigrade rise in average temperatures.

The Hansen report (compiled with 18 other international experts) shows New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, and Shanghai and other coastal cities as well as most of Florida at risk of severe regular flooding or submersion by 2100.

The 6 foot storm surge from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 flooded the New York City subway system and predictions say this will become common place.

During the Eemian interglacial period 120,000 years ago, which was only about 1 degree warmer than the 2016 average, sea levels with all the glaciers melted were 6 to 9 meters (two stories) higher than today and they remained that high for thousands of years.

The UN’s assessment is for a maximum rise of one meter by 2100 but their recent report also called climate change now "irreversible without drastic changes," but Hansen and other experts point out that they didn’t factor in melting of all the ice sheets and changing vegetation.

Now improved measurements show CO2 sensitivity is much worse than thought.

Tiny openings (stomata) let carbon dioxide pass for photosynthesis. The size and number of these holes vary with the concentration of CO2. Smaller holes equals more CO2. But this also varies with species and many no longer exist for comparison tests so a better way was outlined in a 2014 paper in Geophysical Research Letters using a combination of the hole size and depth along with carbon isotope tests. The upshot is that CO2 levels during some warm geologic periods were in the 300 ppm range, lower than earlier thought/ That means temperature is more sensitive to CO2 levels than earlier thought.

Mid 1800s CO2 levels were 280 ppm - today they are above 400 ppm.

The latest models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say current levels should cause a near term 3°C rise and eventually up to 4°C rise as ice sheets melt and plant growth changes over longer time periods such as the next 50-100 years.

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